Our group is finally going to break down and start an Adventure Path subscription, and will likely each month pick up one old adventure path module as well in order to catch up... we take pretty good 'minutes' in our group and it occurred to me that it might be interesting to type those up in narrative form, tracking our progress through the adventure, our miscues and triumphs, what we figured out and what we missed completely, as well as any dramatic or humorous turns the adventure might take, and post it here in an on-going thread.
Do you think there would be interest enough in reading something like that that it would be worth the effort? There'd be spoilers aplenty sure, but I'd mark that out clearly in the thread title, and I'd post the stat blocks for the characters each time they leveled... there has already been talk about the party composition as the group's kind of excited about this, with some old characters revived and new characters introduced at whatever level is appropriate, though the party composition might change from adventure path to adventure path.
Right now its looking like we'll be running something like this:
Half-Orc Paladin 2 / Sorcerer 10 (Draconic) / Dragon Disciple 8
(The leader of the group, secondary fighter, secondary caster, and descendant of a rather prodigious Orc Warlord, a theme that will tie the party together - he will have the Eldritch Heritage feats for the Orcish Bloodline)
Half-Orc Barbarian 2 / Rogue 18 (Scout - Thug)
(Wielder of a massive earth-breaker, he is also a descendant of the Orc Warlord and half-brother to the group's leader. The brute focuses on dealing massive non-lethal damage and serves as a secondary skill monkey. Often at odds with the leader and his 'do-gooder' nature, he nonetheless embraces their bond of blood. He too will be using the Eldritch Heritage feats for the Orcish Bloodline)
Human Paladin 2 (Sacred Shield) / Bard 18 (Geisha)
(Paramour to the group's leader, she also serves as the 'face' of the party and the group's primary skilled character. She will often be non-combatant, focusing more on enchantment, buff and healing spells)
Halfling Summoner (Master Summoner) 20
(The only member of the group with no direct attachment, he accompanies them purely for adventure and wealth. His eidolon is tricked out as the party's scout and serves as a pocket rogue; both he and the eidolon wield wands in combat in between summonings.)
Half-Orc Sorcerer (Cross-blooded Dragon-Orc) 1 / Wizard (Admixture Evoker) 19
(The twin sister of the group's leader, she sports a sleek figure which she constantly displays and a hideous face which she keeps carefully veiled, she is ambitious, cynical and bitter about their shared parentage... often she and the Barbarian/Rogue will find themselves in conflict with the Dragon Disciple and Bard, with the more objective Halfling playing the role of peace-maker and casting the deciding vote.)
The group sets up some nice RP dynamics, though I wonder if having a couple of rigidly Lawful Good members might inhibit them from the occasional bit of skull-duggery. We rule Paladins a little differently in our game, holding them to the beliefs and goals of their deity more than to a Lawful Good code of conduct, so that may give them a bit of leeway. We should feature plenty of casters and an adequate melee threat when you factor in summoned monsters as well as a fair mixture of skills.
Do you think there would be interest in tracking this party and its adventures?
Well, at least that proves you can be cheesed out and still have great RP potential. As if that needed more proof...
Well, at least that proves you can be cheesed out and still have great RP potential. As if that needed more proof...
The group is a role-playing group first, but likes to be optimized as much as possible... I design most of the characters but we talk through a lot of the decisions - the wizard initially wanted to be an elf for obvious reasons, but the group convinced her to go half-orc to keep the 'orcish heritage' thing going. There's a plan for the two of them (brother and sister) to eventually either have this great schism or be destined for something important or both.
Do you think there would be any interest in following the group's adventures through established adventure paths?
A well written campaign journal based on detailed notes would be greatly appreciated. In particular I'd like to see how the eidolon rogue plays out, as it's something I was considering looking into.
By starting an adventure path do you mean you'll be running Skull and Shackles? If so I'd be very interested in how the paladin works out. Any clue what other path you'll be picking up?
Campaign journals section exists for this very purpose. Write it up/ post away and have fun with it.
A word to the wise: APs are definitely not written for 20th level characters!
A well written campaign journal based on detailed notes would be greatly appreciated. In particular I'd like to see how the eidolon rogue plays out, as it's something I was considering looking into.
By starting an adventure path do you mean you'll be running Skull and Shackles? If so I'd be very interested in how the paladin works out. Any clue what other path you'll be picking up?
We haven't really decided yet - we don't know much about the paths, but I'm not sure that a piracy campaign would be the first one we wanted to try. Any suggestions?
The Master Summoner is actually mine, and I've used that scout to great effect in the past. Kind of drives the GM nuts though.
Campaign journals section exists for this very purpose. Write it up/ post away and have fun with it.
I concur.
Campaign journals section exists for this very purpose. Write it up/ post away and have fun with it.
A word to the wise: APs are definitely not written for 20th level characters!
I didn't realize that such a thing existed... like I said, this is our first foray into the adventure paths and I only just started delving into the adventure path forums. Thanks for the nugde.
And no, these characters aren't designed to be played only at 20 (or any other level for that matter), I just like to have the character's career path mapped out ahead of time.
Campaign journals section exists for this very purpose. Write it up/ post away and have fun with it.I concur.
Hmmm... think you can point me in the right direction?
Campaign journals section exists for this very purpose. Write it up/ post away and have fun with it.
A word to the wise: APs are definitely not written for 20th level characters!
I didn't realize that such a thing existed... like I said, this is our first foray into the adventure paths and I only just started delving into the adventure path forums. Thanks for the nugde.
And no, these characters aren't designed to be played only at 20 (or any other level for that matter), I just like to have the character's career path mapped out ahead of time.
Ah, ok, that explains the 20th level progression.
However, I suggest "planning" for about 16th.
Hmmm... think you can point me in the right direction?Campaign journals section exists for this very purpose. Write it up/ post away and have fun with it.I concur.
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Campaign journals section exists for this very purpose. Write it up/ post away and have fun with it.
A word to the wise: APs are definitely not written for 20th level characters!
I didn't realize that such a thing existed... like I said, this is our first foray into the adventure paths and I only just started delving into the adventure path forums. Thanks for the nugde.
And no, these characters aren't designed to be played only at 20 (or any other level for that matter), I just like to have the character's career path mapped out ahead of time.
Ah, ok, that explains the 20th level progression.
However, I suggest "planning" for about 16th.
Yes, the Adventure Paths are only written up to around 15th or 16th level (Council of Thieves is more like 13th), so if you want to go all the way to 20th you'll have to write your own extensions. Fortunately, they do have ideas for continuing on afterward written into the final volume of each path.
That looks like an interesting party you've got there.
Rise of the Runelords is by far my favorite, but is out of print (in parts). If you're ok with PDFs then I would recomend this first. There is a lot of traditional adventuring, dungeon crawling (lots of small/medium dungeons), plenty of overland travel and exploration, some urban adventuring, and the discovery and exploration of an ancient ruin. Lots of classic monsters and quite a few very interesting NPCs to interact with. Some things to know, in it's current form it's written for D&D 3.5 so needs to be converted to Pathfinder RPG...being the oldest Pathfinder AP it has seen the most work online so getting other people's conversion notes is cake...Paizo will be releasing a compilation of the six volumes updated to Pathfinder RPG with a little bit of additional material in July of this year.
Curse of the Crimson Throne is a good AP from what I've seen of it. Predominantly urban with a fair bit of high adventure politics and some interesting scenarios to experience. The initial hook that gets everyone together and starts the whole thing is consider week by some (I'm among them) so might benefit from a little polishing.
Second Darkness gets a bad rap but from what I've seen I like it. This was before Paizo really keyed in on handling false expectations though, so make it clear to the party they won't really be spending much time in Ridleport and that'll solve at least half the regular complaints. Works well for an all elf group, so might not be the best for what you guys have set up, but I'm sure it could be made to work.
I know very little about Legacy of Fire.
Council of Theves is another that gets a bad rap. I'm not as familiar with it as I'd like, but I know it's another predominantly urban campaign. It looks interesting to me, but hasn't hit me the way some of the others have.
From what I've seen Kingmaker might be a very good choice. I'm not super familiar with it, but I get the impression it's one of the most open ended APs out there. Plenty of room to work on party driven plot arcs. The basic idea of this path is the group is hired to go into an area that's been overrun by monsters and bandits, clear said troubles out, and establish a civilization there. Only complaints I've really heard about it are that it's too open (has little/no plot).
Serpent's Skull would be good if people in your party like to explore lost civilizations and are interested in the Pathfinder organization. It has it's belmishes, which if memory serves are mostly in the later half and include an abundance of combat and a lot of similar situations (race groups of NPCs to ancient ruins, fight monsters and NPCs once your there, find location of next ruin...then race groups of NPCs to the ancient ruin...), but with some extra polish I think this could be an absolutly amazing campaign.
I'm playing in Carrion Crown, so have a weird level of familiarity. As a whole the AP is solid in my opinion, but suffers a little from it's format. Basically each book is a very self contained adventure themed on a specific horror monster (ghosts, golems, were wolves, aliens, vampires, lichs), with the thread conecting all of it together being a race to stop an evil cult from doing evil stuff...that the party really has no ability to stop/effect until the last book. I understand the complaints against it but most of them aren't things that bother me, and the one that really would (the issue of "this is the ghost adventure, and this is the werewolf adventure, and this is the vampire adventure") hasn't surfaced in actual play (I think a badass GM and amazing group of RP focused gamers has a lot to do with this).
I've been purposely staying a little in the dark on Skull and Shackles in a hope of playing it at some point.
On the off chance that the pre Pathfinder APs are on the table, I would be just about willing to pay you to write a campaign journal for Age of Worms...
From what I've seen Kingmaker might be a very good choice. I'm not super familiar with it, but I get the impression it's one of the most open ended APs out there. Plenty of room to work on party driven plot arcs. The basic idea of this path is the group is hired to go into an area that's been overrun by monsters and bandits, clear said troubles out, and establish a civilization there. Only complaints I've really heard about it are that it's too open (has little/no plot).Serpent's Skull would be good if people in your party like to explore lost civilizations and are interested in the Pathfinder organization. It has it's belmishes, which if memory serves are mostly in the later half and include an abundance of combat and a lot of similar situations (race groups of NPCs to ancient ruins, fight monsters and NPCs once your there, find location of next ruin...then race groups of NPCs to the ancient ruin...), but with some extra polish I think this could be an absolutly amazing campaign.
I'm thinking these two will be our first choices, with an eye towards Rise of the Runelords when the updated version comes out...
Okay, just got done talking to the players - the two Paladins (a married couple) will use the Oath of Loyalty archetype. Should work out well for all concerned since the benefit is Charisma-based and neither level-based nor limited by the need for evil foes... plus it suits their characters and the bonds they share.
Yes, the Adventure Paths are only written up to around 15th or 16th level (Council of Thieves is more like 13th), so if you want to go all the way to 20th you'll have to write your own extensions. Fortunately, they do have ideas for continuing on afterward written into the final volume of each path.
That looks like an interesting party you've got there.
What levels do they usually begin at - 1st? I ask because we've never started a campaign at 1st level... usually its 2nd or 3rd but with 0 xp so that we still have to earn our way up. 1st level characters are just so limited they aren't even any fun to play.
That should work fine if they start with 1st level gear. Otherwise, the critters will be broke. :)
1st level in Pathfinder is infinitely more pleasing to play than 1st in any other d20 based game I've ever played. All the APs to date start at first, and it's a very fair bet this isn't changing any time soon. I would suggest starting at first, if only to be able to say you've done it and were corect in thinking it was a drag. If you're hell bent on starting higher, I think RotRl could work pretty easy with either skipping parts of the first book, skipping the first book entirely, or just upping the monsters...in order of most to least ease (based on my own opinion obviously).
I started running Carrion Crown at 3rd (I think) and it wasn't horrible, but I honestly don't think I'd do it again. Least of all any time soon.